


OVERDOSE

by jedusaur



Series: Cause and Correlation of Death [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Machine of Death - ed. Bennardo/Malki/North
Genre: Death, M/M, Nobody Actually Dies, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:49:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedusaur/pseuds/jedusaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The truth is that he can't spend his life constantly fighting the urge to ask. He can't be around the only person who's ever been able to make him relax, knowing that it will never be like that again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	OVERDOSE

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't use the character death archive warning because no one actually dies, but this is a fic about death, so be warned. If you're not familiar with Machine of Death, the first full paragraph of [the Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_of_Death) is everything you need to know.
> 
> Thanks to psocoptera, teaboytoaliens, and buchanan!

**March 2014**

“Holster’s TOXIN and I’m HEART FAILURE,” Ransom declares, and Jack starts thinking up excuses to leave.

“We’re hoping for a Romeo and Juliet kind of situation,” adds Holster, snuggling against Ransom’s shoulder.

Lardo snorts. “I would not categorize Juliet’s cause of death as heart failure.”

A spirited debate breaks out over whether and to what extent the machines use metaphors in their predictions. Jack unobtrusively closes his book and slides it into his bag. He wasn’t planning to go to bed yet, but he can do this reading in his room, and he needs to be up early in the morning anyway.

Shitty leans across Jack’s lap toward Bittle, who’s sitting on his other side. “Hey, Bits, you okay?” he asks quietly.

Jack hadn’t noticed, but Bittle does look kind of freaked out. “Um, I think so,” he says. “Is it normal up here to talk about this? Back home, we… didn’t.”

That’s not surprising, given what Jack knows of the American South. It’s not exactly a socially acceptable topic of conversation anywhere he’s been, though. Ransom and Holster are just Ransom and Holster. It’s not socially acceptable to sit around the dinner table trying to draw police sketches of each other’s turds based on detailed descriptions, either.

“It’s not getting-to-know-you chitchat kinda shit, but we’re all pretty tight here,” says Shitty. “No worries, though, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Jack doesn’t.”

Jack extricates himself from between them. “I’m going to bed.”

“If it was metaphorical for _you_ , it would be metaphorical for _him_ ,” argues Lardo. “In a Romeo and Juliet scenario under your proposed parameters of allowable figurative language, you’d _both_ be HEART FAILURE.”

Jack doesn’t get any more reading done. He winds up just lying on his bed, staring at the dark screen of his phone.

 

**April 2009**

Kent steps around the bed before touching Jack’s arm, so Jack will see it coming. “C’mon, Zimms. You’re gonna be late.”

Jack curls into himself. “I really, really don’t want to do this.”

“I know.” Kent rubs his arm soothingly. “You gotta, bud. Let’s go.”

“No.”

Kent doesn’t respond to that, just waits patiently. Sometimes Jack thinks Kent is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and sometimes he thinks it’s not actually good that he ever feels comfortable acting so stupid and childish.

“You need a pill?” Kent asks.

Jack’s already taken plenty. Not enough to calm himself down, but he can’t take more for another hour. He almost says yes anyway.

Instead--slowly, reluctantly--he drags himself upright. “Will you come with me?”

“Sure,” says Kent. “Long as Ted’s okay with it.”

Their agent, as it turns out, is okay with anything that gets Jack to actually go through with this, so Kent’s hand is warm and solid on Jack’s shoulder as he puts his finger into the machine. He has to fight the perverse urge to yank it back out while the needle is still inside the tip. Maybe if it only gets half a sample, it will only give him half an answer.

It spits out a result. None of them pick it up.

“You do it,” Jack says.

He means Kent, but Ted leans forward to grab the paper. He sticks it in the copier and scans it, then holds it out.

Jack doesn’t move. Kent takes it for him.

“You can just fill out all the draft paperwork, Ted,” Jack says in a rush. “You don’t have to tell me, I’ll just--look at it later.”

Ted eyes him, then glances at Kent. “He’s not driving, is he?”

“I got him,” Kent says, and leads Jack to the door.

Neither of them says another word until they’re back at Jack’s billet. The paper is in Kent’s pocket. Jack wants to burn it. He wants to run away.

“You read it,” he says.

Kent takes it out and unfolds it. He looks at it for a lot longer than it could possibly take to read.

“I don’t want to know,” Jack whispers.

“Okay,” says Kent. He folds the paper, tucks it back in his pocket. “Okay,” he says, and wraps his arms around Jack.

 

**June 2015**

Jack leans into the booth for an awkward one-armed sideways hug. He’s not sure if that’s something they do anymore--they definitely didn’t the last couple times they saw each other--but Kent returns the hug with the appropriate amount of manly back-patting, so it’s probably okay.

The meal isn’t as awkward as it could have been, because they are both adults with basic conversational skills, but Kent is clearly waiting for Jack to come out with a reason for this. Jack keeps him waiting until they’re finished with their entrees. Some awkwardness is beyond smoothing over with small talk, and he’s not going to risk either of them walking out in the middle of dinner.

Finally, the server clears their plates and offers a dessert menu. Jack orders a cup of black coffee while Kent, still in that happy gap between the end of the postseason and the beginning of offseason training, settles on a slice of honey-soaked lemon cake.

Jack folds his hands in his lap and says, “So, I’m giving this pro hockey thing another shot.”

“I heard,” Kent says sardonically. The hockey media hasn’t been talking about much else this summer.

“I did a lot of things wrong last time. I’m trying to fix as much of that as I can.” Jack takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Kenny. I’m so sorry for all the shit I’ve put you through. You were the best friend I ever had. It wasn’t fair to put that on you, and it wasn’t fair to blame you for it.”

Kent closes his eyes. They sit in silence for a long time before he rubs his face and says, “Thanks.”

“All the time,” whispers Jack.

“What?”

Jack looks away. “Remember what you asked me, when--”

“Shit,” says Kent. “Seriously?”

The server sets down Kent’s cake, Jack’s coffee, and the bill, with a murmured, “Take your time.” Jack thanks him politely. Kent acts like he doesn’t even notice, still staring at Jack.

“I’m not trying to turn it into anything,” Jack says. “I know it’s not going to--I mean, I can’t fix this now. I just want to be honest with you.”

Kent pinches a piece of cake off the corner of his slice and wordlessly holds it out.

They’re in public, in a hotel restaurant in Buffalo. Anyone could be holding up a cameraphone right now. Jack doesn’t look around to check. He leans forward, eyes locked on Kent’s, and wraps his lips around Kent’s fingers.

Kent withdraws his hand. He watches Jack chew, and swallow, and then he gets out his wallet. As he pulls out way more cash than necessary, Jack catches a glimpse of a worn piece of paper tucked in the transparent pocket of the wallet. His heart, already beating like he’s taking a faceoff in overtime, speeds up even more.

“You have a room here, right?” Kent asks, his voice raspy.

Jack nods and leads him to the elevators.

As soon as the doors close behind them, Kent has him pressed up against the mirrored wall, rail digging into the backs of his thighs. They breathe the same air for a second, just long enough for Jack to say, “This is a bad idea,” before Kent kisses him.

 

**May 2013**

“You don’t have to fucking tell me that,” Kent snaps. “But what else was I supposed to do? You're talking to the _media,_ but not me. You don’t answer my texts, you don’t answer my e-mails, you tell Ted--what the fuck did you tell Ted? He’s been acting like I got caught with an underage hooker.”

Jack folds his arms tight across his chest, trying to think up an excuse to leave that Kent will accept. “What do you want?”

“An apology would be fantastic, but we could start with a fucking explanation.” Kent mirrors Jack’s posture, folding his arms. “We were best fucking friends, Jack. What happened?”

“People… grow apart,” Jack tries, but he’s not even fooling himself with that.

The truth is that he can't spend his life constantly fighting the urge to ask. He can't be around the only person who's ever been able to make him relax, knowing that it will never be like that again.

Kent shakes his head. “You know, I never did a single fucking thing you didn’t ask me to.”

Jack knows. He knows he fucked up, he _knows_ it’s his fault. “Just go away, Kent. Leave me alone.”

Stupid and childish. 

“Heyyyyy!” Shitty stops short in the doorway, throwing his arms up. “Look who’s come to fuckin’ call!”

Kent’s fan-greeting smile is aimed at Jack for a split second, just before he turns to look at Shitty. It creeps him out.

“Hi there! Just visiting an old buddy. Cool if I stick around for dinner? I’ll buy, if you guys are ordering out.”

“Oh yeah, we always do. Nothing in that fridge except beer and salsa.” Shitty shakes Kent’s hand enthusiastically. “Man, woulda rinsed the mold outta the sink if Jack had told us you were coming.”

“Would’ve been somewhere else if I’d known,” mutters Jack, and slams the front door on his way out.

 

**April 2015**

The door bangs shut behind Jack, startling him. He always forgets how heavy it is. Lately he’s mostly been coming here with Bittle, who always remembers to close it gently.

George has already set up camp at a table by the window with a latte and a few layers of papers scattered in front of her. Jack waves to her and gets in line. A minute later, coffee in hand, he sits down across from her. “So, what’s on the agenda today?”

She gestures to the table. “So much paperwork you’re gonna sprain your hand. I made extra copies of the worst ones so we can take a break to cut snowflakes.”

Jack’s lips twitch. “I realize you’ve known me since I was five, George, but…”

“Bet your signing bonus that halfway through this mess you’ll be begging me for a snowflake break.” She clicks a pen like it’s the safety on a gun. “Get comfy.”

The first half hour or so goes fine. Jack’s handwriting muscles are well-developed from being the only one in most of his classes who still takes notes on paper. Then they get to the medical history, and George asks him to fill in his cause of death.

Jack swallows. “Ask Ted.”

She pauses, pen poised. “Huh?”

“I never…” Jack shakes his head helplessly. “Ask Ted.”

He thinks she’ll just leave it blank and deal with it later, but this is George. He should have expected her to pull out her phone and make the call right there. Jack watches, chest tight, as she fills in the blank and thanks Ted for his help. It’s right there in front of him now. If he focused enough to read George’s chicken scratch upside down…

“Jack?”

He snaps out of it. George is looking at him cautiously.

“That’s it for that one, right?” he says, a little too loud.

She nods slowly. Jack grabs his mug and fills his field of vision with its rim while she covers the paper up with another blank form.

 

**December 2014**

Jack drains his solo cup and tosses it into a corner of the porch already strewn with garbage. The couple making out on the steps are finally stumbling off to somebody’s dorm room with their arms around each other’s waists, and he’s alone for about three seconds before the screen door squeaks open.

Someone sits down on the porch next to him, pressing up against his side. He doesn’t have to look to know who it is. Nobody else would sit that close when he’s brooding.

They sit there in silence for a long, long time before Kent says distantly, “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d let me kiss you, that night after we won the Memorial Cup?”

Jack doesn’t answer. After another long pause, Kent gets up and heads off to his car.

Jack rubs his eyes. He’s so fucking exhausted.

 

**June 2015**

Jack rubs the sleep out of his eyes, squinting against the sun. He usually closes the curtains before he goes to bed in hotel rooms, but last night--

Last night. He turns his head to the side. Kent is lying there, naked, still asleep.

Jack can’t deal with this. He slips out from under the covers, grabbing pants off the floor. He’ll find a coffee shop, get breakfast, give Kent a chance to get out of here...

A wallet falls out of the jeans he’s holding.

Jack picks it up. He’s trembling, like he does when he has an anxiety attack, but his head feels strangely clear. He doesn’t know what he _should_ do, but he knows what he’s _going_ to do.

The paper says OVERDOSE.

“Is that all you wanted?”

Jack jumps. The paper flutters to the floor.

“I would have told you. If you wanted to know, I would have told you anytime you asked.” Kent’s eyes are wet. “I thought about telling you anyway. Then at least I’d deserve what you were doing to me.” He turns his face into the pillow, roughly wiping his tears on it. “You didn’t have to fuck me for it.”

“Kenny--” Jack starts, horrified.

“Shut the fuck up,” Kent interrupts.

Jack closes his mouth.

Kent rolls over to face away from him. “Yours is at my mom’s house,” he says. “About twenty minutes from here if traffic’s not too bad. I can go get it. Or I can just tell you. Or you can keep not knowing. I don’t know what the fuck you want. But that one’s mine.”

Jack can’t move.

“You don’t need to think up the right excuse,” Kent says dully. “You can just go.”

Jack is trembling again, maybe still.

He gets up.

He moves around the bed, so Kent will see it coming, and lays a hand on Kent’s arm.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [PODFIC - OVERDOSE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5577166) by [bienenalster (pinkspider)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkspider/pseuds/bienenalster)




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